Yesterday, I went to London to see a comedian I have been following online for years.
I was really looking forward to it. The show was brilliant; the comedians before him were great, and the headliner was every bit as funny in real life as he is online.
But strangely enough, the thing I kept thinking about afterwards wasn’t the comedy.
It was the journey.
Because yesterday, I realised just how much my relationship with rushing has changed.
Everyone was rushing
I had to take the train and then the Underground into London.
Now, if you’ve travelled on the London Underground, you know what happens when a train arrives.
People get off.
People get on.
And then everyone seems to suddenly have somewhere extremely important to be.
There is a stream of people moving quickly through the station, and if you are part of that stream, you move with it.
I used to do exactly that.
I used to get nervous about travelling because I didn’t want to be late, and I didn’t want to have to rush. But at the same time, I felt that I had to keep up with everyone else.
I didn’t want to stand out.
I didn’t want to be the person walking slowly when everyone else was hurrying.
So I hurried too.
Yesterday, I did something completely different.
When everyone got off the train and started rushing towards the exit, I simply moved to the side.
I let them go.
And then I walked on when the crowd had disappeared.
It was surprisingly peaceful.
And there was a very clear thought behind it:
I don’t have to participate in this.
That thought gave me an enormous sense of relief.
The strange power of not joining in
There wasn’t actually anything I needed to rush towards.
Nobody was chasing me.
I wasn’t going to miss the comedy show.
I had left home early enough.
I had given myself plenty of time.
So why would I need to behave as though I was in a hurry?
This sounds ridiculously simple when you say it out loud.
But how often do we allow other people’s urgency to become our urgency?
Someone else is rushing, so we rush.
Someone else is stressed, so we become stressed.
Everyone else is doing something a particular way, so we assume that must be how we’re supposed to do it too.
Psychologically, we are very susceptible to what is happening around us. We pick up cues from other people and from our environment, and sometimes our nervous system responds to the appearance of urgency even when there is no actual emergency.
And there is another little psychological trap here:
We often confuse what is happening around us with what is required of us.
Everyone was rushing.
But I didn’t have to.
That distinction gave me my afternoon back.
I didn’t have to make the Underground a test of endurance
It was a very warm day, and the Underground tunnels were warm too.
So once again, I didn’t hurry.
When people were streaming through the tunnels, I would stand over to the side, often against a wall, and simply wait for the crowd to pass.
Then I would continue.
There was no dramatic technique involved.
No breathing exercise.
No complicated mindfulness practice.
Just:
Stop. Wait. Continue when ready.
And I enjoyed it.
Instead of feeling trapped in the momentum of the crowd, I felt as though I had stepped outside of it.
I was still in London.
I was still travelling.
I was still going to the same place.
But I was doing it at my own pace.
And that felt incredibly freeing.
I had given myself time
There was another thing that made this possible.
I had left early.
I know myself well enough to know that trains can be delayed, the Underground can have problems, and London can be unpredictable.
So rather than planning my journey around everything going perfectly, I gave myself plenty of time.
That meant that a delay wasn’t automatically a disaster.
It also meant I could wander around Whitechapel before the show.
And I’m so glad I did.
I had never really explored that part of London before, so instead of treating the time as something I needed to fill until the doors opened, I simply explored.
I walked around.
I looked at the old buildings.
I wandered through the market.
There was fresh food everywhere, beautiful scarves and cotton clothing, and restaurants serving all sorts of wonderful food from different cultures.
I sat down in places.
I watched people.
I enjoyed seeing people from all sorts of backgrounds simply going about their lives.
There was something lovely about it.
Whitechapel has quite a history, of course. At one point I even found myself thinking about Jack the Ripper and how dramatically this area has changed since then.
And then, very close to the Genesis Cinema, I came across what looked like a stone shipwrecked boat sitting on the pavement.
Naturally, I took a picture.
Because apparently, when you aren’t rushing, you notice things like mysterious boats on pavements.
And that’s the point.
When we rush, we don’t just experience stress. We miss things.
What if you don’t have to keep up?
I’ve changed a lot in the last seven years.
I used to live much more according to what I thought I was supposed to do.
I went with the flow.
I worried about standing out.
I worried about what other people were doing.
And I often adapted myself to the environment rather than stopping to ask myself what I actually wanted.
Over the years, I’ve become much more conscious about how I want to live my life.
Not in the sense that I have everything figured out.
Far from it.
But I ask myself different questions now.
Do I actually want to do this?
Is this something I need to do, or something I’m assuming I have to do?
Am I choosing this, or am I simply following everyone else?
And yesterday, the question was wonderfully simple:
Do I need to rush?
No.
So I didn’t.
You can step out of the current
Perhaps this is one of the most useful things we can learn about stress.
We sometimes think our only options are to put up with a stressful situation or avoid it altogether.
But there is often another option.
We can change the way we participate in it.
I couldn’t make London less busy.
I couldn’t make the Underground less crowded.
I couldn’t make everyone else walk more slowly.
And I didn’t need to.
I could simply step to the side.
Wait.
Let the current move past me.
And then continue on my own terms.
That is something we can do in many areas of life.
You don’t have to match someone else’s urgency.
You don’t have to answer a message immediately because someone else expects you to.
You don’t have to make a decision because everybody else seems to have made theirs.
You don’t have to fill every silence.
You don’t have to hurry just because someone beside you is hurrying.
And you certainly don’t have to participate in someone else’s chaos.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is quietly decide:
“That’s yours. This is mine.”
A slower way of moving through life
The funny thing is that I didn’t miss out by slowing down.
I actually experienced more.
I explored somewhere new.
I noticed the architecture.
I discovered the market.
I watched people.
I found the strange stone boat.
I arrived at the comedy show with plenty of time.
And I enjoyed the whole experience rather than simply enduring the journey to get there.
Perhaps that is what slowing down really gives us.
Not less life.
More of it.
So the next time you find yourself rushing because everyone around you is rushing, you might pause for a moment and ask yourself:
Do I actually need to hurry?
And if the answer is no, perhaps you can step to the side.
Let everybody else rush past.
Take a breath.
Look around.
And then, when you’re ready, carry on.
You might be surprised by how much more of the journey you get to experience.
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Disclaimer: The content of this blog post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. While I strive to provide accurate, well-researched, and up-to-date information, I am not a licensed medical professional. The insights shared here are based on personal research and experience. I encourage you to conduct your own research and consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions. Your well-being is important, and any actions taken based on the information in this blog are solely at your own discretion and risk.